Beach cat blues, p.22
Beach Cat Blues, page 22
“He hasn’t bought it yet so at present it still belongs to Gordon. But, at the moment, given that Gordon is in custody and Thomas is in hospital, I’m the only one in a position to make a decision. And my decision is that, for the time being, he returns to work. Apart from anything else, we need him. Anyway,” she continued, “I went to the kitchen just to sort of say welcome back and we had a coffee together. And a chat,” she added.
“What did he say?” Jeremy asked curiously.
“He seems changed somehow, more open. He just started talking. About himself. I’ve never really known anything about him before. I just thought that he was naturally reserved, but it was probably because he was afraid that the story about his murder conviction would come out.”
“Hardly surprising,” said Jeremy.
“Anyway, he started talking about his childhood and his parents. Apparently he was brought up in the house that he owns now and his parents were quite wealthy. They owned a string of small convenience stores along the coast. He said that he was an only child and that his parents were always loving and kind. He went to university, you know.”
“Did he?” Jeremy sounded surprised. “What did he study?”
“History. He didn’t finish his course, though. It was the usual story. He got in with the wrong crowd and started taking drugs, stopped going to lectures and so on. From what he said, I think that his parents were supportive as soon as they realised what was going on. I mean, they tried to get treatment for him and look after him and so on but he just drifted further and further down until he was pretty much living on the streets. His mental health suffered, too.”
“I’m not surprised.” Jeremy hesitated for a moment. “Did he say anything about, you know…”
“Yes, he did. I deliberately didn’t ask him, but he just started talking about it. He said that he was twenty-two when it happened. He was off his head at the time, and he wasn’t the one to fire the gun. He said that he thought the gun was a fake and that they were only going to scare the post master into giving them money.”
“Do you believe him?”
Molly nodded.
“I think that I do. But it’s the joint enterprise thing. He didn’t actually have to fire the gun to be charged along with the other man.”
“What about him thinking that the gun was a fake?”
“The police, and the prosecution, didn’t believe him. He said that he had nightmares about it all for years. He tried to send the policeman’s widow some money but she wouldn’t take it.”
“Not sure that I blame her, really,” said Jeremy.
“This new friend of his, Louise, thinks that there may be a chance of an appeal.”
“On what grounds?”
“I’m not sure. I know that the law has changed but whether it would benefit him or not I don’t know. Anyway, he’s served his sentence now.”
“How long was he actually inside for?”
“The best part of twenty years, I think.”
They fell silent for a moment.
“He did say a strange thing, though,” said Molly. “He said that being in prison saved his life.” She smiled suddenly. “It was where he learned to cook.”
In the lodge kitchen, Carlos snapped the lid on the last of the leftovers and turned to Simon.
“Thanks for staying on this afternoon, Simon. It felt, like, a bit weird coming back in today. Like with everything that’s happened and that. It was nice to have some company.”
Simon nodded and spooned coffee into two mugs. Aubrey edged his way round the open door and flopped down on the floor between them. Might as well wait here for Vincent. He just didn’t have the energy to carry on making the rounds today. Although, he had to admit, he was feeling quite a lot better. The minced chicken that Jeremy had been feeding him had definitely helped. So much so that he had actually contemplated spinning things out for a bit longer, but then decided against it. Jeremy, Molly and Carlos had been so worried about him that it didn’t seem fair to make them suffer any longer than they needed to. Although the chicken was very nice…
“So what’s happening?” continued Carlos. “I mean, like with the Lodge and that?”
Simon turned to face him.
“At the moment, nothing. I’ve spoken to a solicitor about buying it, but there’s all the other stuff to sort out first. In the meantime, it’s been agreed with the police that Molly will continue running it so that there’s no disruption to the residents although they’re bound to find out soon what’s been happening. It’ll be on the news.”
Carlos nodded.
“Will you be allowed to buy it?” he asked, suddenly shy. “I mean, you know, are you allowed…”
“I can buy a property. It’s whether I can start a business. I might have to form a company or something. That’s one of the things I asked the solicitor about. I think it’s more of a problem if you’ve been bankrupt or committed fraud or something like that but anyway, my solicitor is going to look into it.”
Carlos looked at him, his expression solemn. He was, he had to admit, impressed that Simon had a solicitor.
“Do you know, like, hate Gordon for what he was doing?” he asked.
Aubrey paused in the washing of his ears and glanced up at Simon, interested.
Simon was silent for a moment, and then spoke slowly.
“There’s no point,” he said simply. “I’ve wasted enough of my life. If I let myself think about him, it would just be more negative emotion. That’s what Louise says, anyway. And she’s right. There are always going to be Gordons in this world. I can’t go around blaming everyone else for all the mistakes I’ve made. It was my decision to take the stuff in the first place. Nobody made me.”
“What’s it like? What does it feel like?” Carlos asked, suddenly curious. “I mean,” he added hastily, “if you don’t mind me asking.”
Simon regarded him; head tipped to one side.
“No, I don’t mind.” He looked thoughtful, a distant expression in his eyes. “The first time you take it, you get kind of elated, a sort of euphoria. It’s like nothing you’ve ever felt before. Somebody once said that it was like slipping through rainbows on a warm summer day.”
Aubrey stirred uncomfortably. When he’d licked that stuff off the floor, he hadn’t felt elated. He’d felt like he was going to die.
“And,” Simon continued, “that feeling is so good that you want it again. And again. Because the one thing that an addict always wants is more.”
Carlos stared at him. Maybe that’s what it had been like with his father. Maybe he hadn’t really wanted to drink. Maybe he just had to. Alcohol was a drug like any other. But it didn’t make everything all right though. It didn’t wipe out the memories of his father rampaging around their small flat, smashing things and hurling abuse, while his mother cried and his grandfather cowered in the corner. But, maybe, a small part of him could offer some understanding if not forgiveness. He listened quietly as Simon continued.
“And it gets to the point where you’ll do anything to get it. Anything. You stop caring about other people. You stop caring about family and friends. You stop caring about yourself. You know that you smell and that people pass you on the street and look at you with revulsion. You know that shooting up in a public lavatory or on some stained mattress in a scuzzy squat is disgusting but you don’t care. The only thing that you care about is getting enough money together to buy the next fix. It messes with your head and it makes you lose your humanity. I still take medication even now. Proper medication,” he added. “To deal with anxiety.”
Carlos felt his heart bump suddenly. Teddy had told him that one of the boys in her sixth form, a boy called Mungo whose step-mother did something in the government, had taken cocaine and had offered it around in the common room. He pressed his lips tightly together. Teddy had laughed and said that she hadn’t been tempted, but as soon as he got back tonight, he was going to call her and warn her. Tell her what Simon had said, in case she didn’t know. Teddy might think that she was all worldly wise but the only drug takers she knew were those that sat around in designer clothes eating posh dinners. The other sort, the sort that slept in doorways soaked in their own urine, were outside of her experience.
“So how did you cope when, you know, when you were in prison and that?” he asked.
Simon smiled, a wintry smile that held no warmth.
“Everything has a price.”
Carlos looked appalled.
“What? You mean, like, you can even buy it…”
“The first prison I was in, two of the screws were in on it.”
“But you don’t take it now, do you?”
Carlos suddenly felt anxious, the words tumbling out in a rush. Simon was his friend. He was Aubrey and Vincent’s friend, too, as well as Molly and Jeremy’s. They cared about him. If he was still taking heroin, then… his mouth was dry as he waited for Simon’s answer.
Simon shook his head.
“No. Being sent to prison saved me really, it was the best thing that could have happened. Otherwise I don’t think that I’d be here today.”
“How can going to prison save you?” Carlos was confused. And so was Aubrey. Being banged up in Sunny Banks rescue centre hadn’t saved him. It had driven him half-mad. And he hadn’t even gone around waving a gun or anything. He hadn’t done anything at all, other than to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“It was the last prison that I was in. One day I looked at one of the screws. I mean, really looked. And he looked clean and smart and he was laughing and joking with one of the other screws. And I thought, at the end of the day, when he’s finished his shift, he’s going home, probably to a nice house and wife and kids. A home-cooked meal, a pint of beer. Maybe he’ll mow his lawn. And I’m here. And here is where I’ll always be. Or somewhere like it, because I haven’t got a shift to finish. I’m going to be somewhere like this, breathing in the stench of failure and inadequacy, until I die. Bumping along at the bottom of society.” He smiled again, a proper smile this time that reached his eyes. “I couldn’t even blame my upbringing. I mean, some of those poor sods in there had suffered childhoods that would make Oliver Twist look privileged. I’d had nothing but love and kindness.”
He fell silent, his expression thoughtful.
“Do you know,” he continued, “some of the cons inside could barely read or write. They weren’t interested in books or reading. Not because they were stupid, but because it was like a sort of secret code that they couldn’t open. Reading and all that stuff was for posh people. Comics were all that some of them could manage and some of them struggled even with that.”
“But,” said Carlos, puzzled. “How come they couldn’t read or write? They must have gone to school.”
“I expect they did,” said Simon. “Sometimes. If you haven’t got parents that are bothered about where you are and what you’re doing…”
Carlos thought for a moment. It was true. The kids at Sir Frank’s who mucked about in class and always came bottom in everything until they just stopped attending, generally also had the kind of parents who never came to parents’ evenings. He’d heard Jeremy comment on it more than once. But school was one of the many things that Maria had always been strict about. Once when he’d bunked off she had come home early because one of the restaurants that she cleaned had been flooded, and she had caught him lounging about on the sofa and watching television. She hadn’t been angry, which he had braced himself for. She had been sad, her big dark eyes full of tears, which had made far more of an impression on him.
“Carlos, you must listen to your mother. School, it is very necessary. You must go to school to learn all the things to be a famous doctor. If no school then no doctor. Tell me Carlos, do you want to be like your big fat bum-face father?”
And he had said no, he didn’t want to be like his big fat bum-face father and had promised her that he wouldn’t bunk off again. And he hadn’t. He looked at Simon’s face. It was hard to believe now that he had been as he described although, now he thought about it, that day he and Teddy went to visit him at his flat he had looked terrible and he’d looked even worse when they found him in the beach hut.
“Simon,” he hesitated and then ploughed on, “When you didn’t come into work that day, why didn’t you phone in or anything? I mean, you could have told Molly that you weren’t feeling very well.”
Simon looked at him and then looked away. His voice, when he spoke, was barely audible.
“Because I saw it,” he muttered.
“You saw what?”
He turned back to face Carlos.
“The body. Toby Carson. I went for a walk after finishing my shift. I like it over there, it’s kind of wild and free. And I saw it.”
45
Aubrey tucked his paws beneath him and listened. He knew that there had been something that Simon hadn’t told.
“But why didn’t you tell anyone?” Carlos frowned; his smooth forehead furrowed in an effort of understanding. “Why didn’t you ring the police?”
Simon gave a wry smile.
“Why do you think?”
“But you knew that you hadn’t done anything wrong.”
Simon wrapped his fingers around his coffee mug.
“The police would start poking around. They were bound to. And then it would all come out. The post office. The shooting. I would be bound to be in the frame. I went home and,” he hesitated, “I started feeling desperate, trying to think of ways out.”
Carlos stared at him, horrified.
“Not…”
Simon smiled.
“No, not that. But my mind just kept going round and round When you and Teddy came, I was just about at my wit’s end. I didn’t know what to do. Then I thought that if I went to the beach hut, where nobody would find me, it would give me some time to think.”
“And did it?”
Simon shook his head.
“No, not really. Well, it did, but not in a good way. Working at the Lodge, doing up the flats, it changed everything. I couldn’t believe my luck when Thomas didn’t DRB me. It felt like I was living a normal life—I was like other people. In some senses, I was being the son that my parents had wanted me to be. And then Toby Carson got murdered, and it was a bit like…” he paused and thought for a moment. “Do you remember that game of snakes and ladders?”
Carlos nodded. His grandfather had bought it for him when he was about four and they had played it for hours while his mother was at work and his father was snoring on the sofa.
“Well, I’d reached the top of the ladder and then suddenly I’d slithered down a snake and I was stuck there. It was like watching a great train steaming towards me, and there was nothing that I could do to stop it. Everything was going to be taken away. And in the end, in a way, I didn’t mind. There seemed,” he paused and thought for a moment, “a kind of inevitability about it. And I knew where I was in prison. I didn’t have to think when I was inside.”
“Weren’t you afraid that you’d go back to, you know, using and stuff?”
“Yes,” said Simon simply. “It’s always there. Because when things get tough you know at the back of your mind that you can always go back to it. It’s the friend that will make you feel better, the friend that won’t ask any questions and will make everything all right. Except that it’s not a friend. It’s the assassin that’s waiting round every corner.”
Carlos nodded in what he hoped was an understanding manner, although he didn’t really understand at all. His worst vice was his daily crisp habit, which he’d once tried to give up for Lent. He’d lasted for two days. But, to be fair, eating a packet of salt and vinegar didn’t lead to robbing post offices and fatal shootings. He tried to think of something encouraging to say.
“When you stopped using and that, it must have been hard,” Carlos said. “I mean, you did really well. I bet loads of people couldn’t do what you did.”
“The prison had a drugs rehabilitation scheme and I signed up for it. Eventually got myself clean. Then I started helping in the kitchens. When one of the cooks got early release, I took his place. I started to feel better about myself.”
Carlos nodded. That was something that he did understand. Cooking made him feel good about himself as well. He may not become the famous doctor of his mother’s dreams, but he would have his own restaurant and she would have been proud of him. He glanced out of the window. From where he was standing, he could see Gordon’s cottage, the curtains closed and the empty bins parked up against the wall. He had once thought the cottage rather charming. It was the sort of place that he would have liked to have lived in himself when he was properly grown up. He didn’t think so now. Now it had an almost palpable sense of evil swirling about it, like a poisonous spider in its web. He suppressed a shudder and looked back at Simon.
“I expect Gordon will get a long prison sentence. Serves him right. But,” he added with a sudden teenage sense of fair play, “I suppose that he was good to Buster.”
Simon smiled suddenly.
“Even bad people do good things sometimes.”
“I hope that Buster’s all right. I mean, he won’t understand what’s happened.”
Aubrey hoped that Buster was all right, too. After Gordon was arrested Buster had been taken by the dog handling unit and then banged up in some rescue place. He thought for a moment of the small dog’s beautiful golden fur and his happy little face. One thing you could say for Buster, he was always pleased to see you. So pleased that occasionally he was in danger of knocking you right off your feet. Buster loved company, but if this rescue place was anything like Sunny Banks rescue centre, he’d be lucky to get any. The only real contact came at feeding time. And Vincent had told him that at one of those places he knew about, they walked the dogs about five at a time and then only for about ten minutes. Poor little Buster would burst with suppressed energy. He might be getting on all their nerves, and who knew what would happen then?
